The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away novel · Chapter 23 of 32
Chapter 23: The Harvest Auction
I put the phone on speaker.
"Who has keys to that cellar?" I said.
"Me. The caretaker." The chair hesitated. "And every winery on the program signs one out in September."
"Every winery."
"I'm looking at the log right now."
Augie was already pulling his henley over his head.
We were in the truck by six.
At the farmhouse, Winona was on the porch in her bathrobe and her straw hat.
"What happened?"
"Somebody took the barrel."
She didn't ask who.
She went inside and came back out in her good jacket, with Goldie behind her in rain boots and a pajama top.
"She's coming," Winona said. "She's the only one who knows what that dog looks like."
"I know EXACTLY what it looks like," Goldie said.
The auction hall sat on the Healdsburg plaza, with the holding cellar underneath, down a flight of stone steps.
The chair met us at the bottom in her blazer and pearls, no makeup, a clipboard against her chest.
Twenty-one barrels sat on a long rack under bare bulbs.
Between Arnott Estate and a Geyserville winery there was a gap.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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